Download amounts

[Timo Vuorensola]

Hi, everybody!

Many people have been asking about how much the movie has been downloaded. Of course we are not able to monitor anything but the downloads started from our own site, but in addition we have a good handful of mirror sites and the movie is spreading pretty wildly through many P2P softwares all around the world.

So the amounts are only from our site. Of course not everybody has finished the download, but I think it'll compensate when we take in count the fact that one downloaded movie is in many cases seen by a 1-10 people and that our site is only site which we can monitor properly.

The download amounts for this morning (6.10.) are:

213983 straight downloads
382182 torrent downloads

which totals 596165 downloads.

This is as close as we get with the total viewings of this film.

[Reaver.man]

count in 2375 downloads from stargate-sg1.cz
(stats as of today, 20:27 GTM+1)

[Joona]

Whoa!

I just wanted to say that you guys are making history. And wished to cogratulate on it.

Asiaa! Kybällä!

Joona

[Chrysalid]

Way to go! The movie really deserves these kinds of figures. I can say that I burned 5 copies of the XviD version to my friends, and few days later all of them said that they had copied it for their friends, which makes like 30 copies orignating from the one I downloaded

P.S. We need to get SW: ItP into the theaters, by whatever means necessary.

[Reaver.man]

too late
last friday, I made a StarWreck projection at local cinema (free of charge, of course).. there were around 180 ppl from my city and from cities nearby.. it was really great and almost every1 liked the movie.. the projection was from DVD so it had 5.1 sound too I will propably do a second round next week.. it's good to have my uncle working at the cinema

[Timo Vuorensola]

Good to hear people liked! This sort of activity is not only legal, but we even encourage you active people to arrange this sort of shows.

For everybody, in case you didn't know, you can show our movie freely in case you do it for free.

Timo.

[Kanuck]

Just downloaded the movie in Canada, and loved it. I tipped the local media on it. No guarantee they will do anything about it, though. I am recommending it to others, and also am making DVD copies to give around. We also share it on P2P networks.

Your web site is well made too. I rarely spend more time than ten minutes in one, and I spent over an hour on yours yesterday. Quite an accomplishment.

Kudos from Canada, great work Team Star Wreck.

[bothie]

For everybody, in case you didn't know, you can show our movie freely in case you do it for free.Timo.

Two questions regarding this:

1. Would a cinema be allowed to show it for free but show commercials before it (what would make it commercial while keeping free)?
2. If a cinema would like to show the film but not for free, would you agree on some licensing aggreements under certain conditions? Or would your answer be NO in any circumstance?

Regards, Bodo

PS: I've watched the film many, many times - it's just too coool.

[Timo Vuorensola]

Depends on so many factors. I suggest you contact me (timo.vuorensola@pp.inet.fi) in case you have some sort of arrangement in your mind.

Timo.

[jengelh]

I would follow the standard licensing à la CC/GPL/etc. -- the movie itself is free, what you pay for is: the cinema seat, the 36x18 m superscreen and your popcorn, the electricity to play it, etc. (GPL calls this "distribution fees".)

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho]

I would follow the standard licensing à la CC/GPL/etc. -- the movie itself is free, what you pay for is: the cinema seat, the 36x18 m superscreen and your popcorn, the electricity to play it, etc. (GPL calls this "distribution fees".)

You do realize that the GPL allows selling the work for whatever price someone is willing to pay, right? Doesn't have anything to do with Star Wreck.

CC and the GPL are not that much related.

[P-Neuvo]

I would follow the standard licensing à la CC/GPL/etc. -- the movie itself is free, what you pay for is: the cinema seat, the 36x18 m superscreen and your popcorn, the electricity to play it, etc. (GPL calls this "distribution fees".)

You do realize that the GPL allows selling the work for whatever price someone is willing to pay, right? Doesn't have anything to do with Star Wreck.

CC and the GPL are not that much related.

Well, I'm just one of the fans of the movie, so I have nothing to do wiht the creating or licensing part of it(read: I don't have the moral responsibility in fron to the many people who helped to create the movi for free), but I believe that it's a pretty fair deal, if a poster says it LOUD AND CLEAR WITH BIG FONT, that a full length version of the the movie is LEGALLY FREE TO DOWNLOAD at www.starwreck.com, and then charge what ever they wish for the ticket, even double of the ticket price of an average "closed source" movie. I believe that the market situation will do its job here and that the usual ticket prices for a legally freely downloadable movie are not an issue to everybody.

So what, let the cinemas stick the big-profit to their pockets, at least the movie will spread and may-be this will encourage the cinemas to look also at other, alternative, freely available movies, to their repertuar. As long as people are fully informed of the freeness of the movie, the cinema just provides a service and it's people's free choice from "moment-one": download it from the URL, shown at the cinema's advert-poster, or enjoy the popcorn and a nice atmosphare in the cinema.
After all, tee in a caffeteria also costs more than tee at home, and it's not unfair, or is it?
(OK, I tend to disagree with the fairness of the shittyly small food portions at trade-shows(think Hannover, CeBIT), that cost 4 times of an average, normal-sized lunch at an average restaurant.)

[S_Hole]

...LEGALLY FREE TO DOWNLOAD at www.starwreck.com, and then charge what ever they wish for the ticket, even double of the ticket price...

Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes

that's Noncommercial on the last one
so if you charge ANY money for showing this film, you are in violation
charging money to pay, say, rent of the theater, if it has to be rented for showings, would be another thing
the point is that nobody makes money with hard work put into the project by others

[P-Neuvo]

the point is that nobody makes money with hard work put into the project by others

UUPS !

[Max Fun]

I kind of tend to see the point in P-Neuvo's view. Why would anyone pay more for a cup of tea in a café than at home, unless the café actually added something extra to the tea itself? Same with a movie theater showing a piece one could rent for much less - down to zero price even. So, why couldn't they charge for the bigger screen, atmosphere, soft benches etc. even if the movie itself were free? In principle I would see nothing wrong in there.

However, I also do see the other point of view - that of those who made Star Wreck. If they won't get money for it, why should anyone else be allowed to gain on what they obviously have created by themselves? Well, this is a hard question about ethics, indeed. But I might have an easy solution as follows.

If we could become assured that everyone only charged for the smoother environment they offer, there might be little problem. Sure, we may happily accept any charge will be just for that, but I'm not sure whether the producers can accept that as well. And collecting any tiny charge from each theater for the viewers might easily appear impossible without involving some major companies - and that indeed sounds like being against the whole idea of spreading it for free!

Now, the first major step is to consider, whether there really should be NO returns what-so-ever for the good job done at all, or should the team actually give in a bit and accept returns from a variety of sources EXCLUDING the free download over the internet? Whether they do want to stick to absolutely no income at all or not, is their decision and not ours. But they might just define the "no pay zone" anew - and more precisely. This would allow the team both stick to their principle of giving the product away for free AND yet get gains associated with it! And this would only be the benefit of those who actually want to see the movie in a theater instead of on a small screen of their own.

Let me clarify myself.

Consider the so called "open source" softwares, e.g. Linux distributions. They are actually not charging anything for the code they are delivering - just like Star Wreck movie itself doesn't cost. However, they do charge for extra features, services and so on. I can see Star Wreck is actually charging for the packaged DVDs in this fashion already. So, I see no reason why SW team could not just define their "no pay zone" more precisely and allow themselves collecting charges for anything else BUT what they are already giving away for free. Say, they could accept any theater to show the movie for an acceptable payment to Energy (=SW team). They could also charge whatever they like for the fan stuff - or just stick to the bare cost of producing and delivering it.

In my mind this would solve all the problems. All that the production team would need to do is them to ACCEPT payments for anything else but the freely available movie itself. Just let the money pour in and keep counting. Of course, the money collected in such a way should be used in a fair fashion considering all the volunteers. That would be most important. And I couldn't imagine any better way for that than to use the money for another even better movie!

In case anyone has a problem with a price at a theater, they could always download the film for free. And the choice to pay, not to pay or not even to watch the film will always be their own, isn't it?

Now, the conclusion might be that some major movie company might be needed to spread the film and to collect the fees from the theaters after all. It would require a change in attitude towards gains, but the change could still be restricted to an acceptable degree, while enabling the maximal availability of the movie to the public. Selling stuff on the movie and STILL keeping the movie itself free simultaneously won't necessarily be impossible at all.